While we can't turn back the clock, getting older is not a sentence for poor health or diminished quality of life. Age is merely a number. While family history plays a role, good health and vibrant living, regardless of the decade, result from lifestyle choices.

In my practice, I see 70-year-olds who are more engaged, vital and healthy than some 30-year-olds because these septuagenarians have chosen to preserve their health. They don't rely on a complicated secret formula but on basic common sense.

At any age, the keys to maintaining good health are: eating right, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding tobacco and seeing a doctor for regular assessments that allow any health problems to be identified early and treated before they become serious medical conditions.

And the good news is, it's never too late to start.

People in the 55-plus age group often grapple with obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, coronary artery disease, diabetes, sleep apnea and thyroid disease. These problems tend to "cluster," meaning that if you have one issue, it predisposes you to other health problems. For instance, people who are overweight tend to have high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes. Fortunately, though, all of these diseases can show marked improvement when a patient eats nutritiously, exercises and loses weight.

The first step in protecting your health is identifying your individual risk factors, particularly those for coronary artery disease, which is the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. A thorough screening includes family history, cholesterol profile, fasting glucose test, blood pressure, and an evaluation of lifestyle issues such as tobacco use.

When you're not experiencing health problems, it is tempting to ignore routine screenings, but in the long run it can be very costly. In the case of coronary artery disease, people may live with pre-existing conditions for many years and only become aware of the problem when they have their first heart attack. Often times, those heart attacks can be fatal or so debilitating that it is difficult to recover.

If the risk factors had been identified earlier, the patient could have taken steps to lower cholesterol and/or blood pressure through appropriate diet, medicine and exercise. It is possible the patient could have avoided the incident all together.

The same holds true for diabetes, which is a stealthy disease. If diabetes is left untreated, it can lead to blindness, amputations and kidney failure. Like heart disease, patients can take control by losing weight, eating well and exercising regularly. I've seen diabetics change their lifestyles and get off medication completely.

For patients over 65, an annual thyroid screening is recommended. The thyroid is one of our largest glands and it controls energy levels, protein synthesis and regulation of other hormones. As people age, it is common for the thyroid to malfunction by becoming overactive, underactive or developing nodules, and I see a large proportion of thyroid problems in my practice. It's important that each of these conditions be identified and treated, if necessary.

Sleep apnea, a sleep disorder characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing or instances of abnormally low breathing during sleep, also increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, heart failure and stroke. It also interferes with restful sleep that is necessary for the body to recover from the rigors of daily life. If you snore abnormally loud, are constantly tired when you wake up in the morning or your spouse has witnessed pauses in your breathing as you sleep, it's possible that you have developed sleep apnea and should discuss this with your physician.

Eating right, exercising and mitigating risk factors aren't silver bullets, but they're effective preventive medicine. By adopting these basic tenets of healthy living, you will help prevent medical problems from occurring or, if they do occur, you will be stronger and healthier, enhancing your power of recovery. Healthy living not only increases the length of your life, but the quality.

And as Mohandas Gandhi once said, "It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver."

This article is not intended to replace medical advice from your physician. Consult your physician if you have any questions.

Eric Wohl, M.D., is a board-certified internal medicine physician at Community Medical Associates and a member of the active medical staff at San Angelo Community Medical Center.